


A Soldier's Promise

by MrProphet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 04:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10689393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	A Soldier's Promise

_Mos Eisley Girl_  was a Starscape-class yacht; the pinnacle of luxury in the days of the Old Republic, but that had been almost a thousand years ago. Now, it was a miracle it was still in one piece, and the rich being’s pleasure boat ferried middle-income passengers with pretentions. Sapha Ytero maintained an attitude of healthy disgust towards her passengers and preferred to pass each voyage in the solitude of the cockpit and her own cabin, leaving the ‘people’ side of things to her daughter, Sutteria. It was Sutteria who was her sole contact during the course of the flight, unless a passenger misbehaved.

  
A light tap on the door signalled Sutteria’s arrival, but it was too early for dinner. Sapha sighed wearily; early meant trouble, every time. Knowing that her daughter would never enter unannounced, she slapped the door control on her flight panel.

“Teria!” she called. “Another blocked head?”

“No, Mum,” Sutteri replied. “It’s… a passenger wants to see you. He says he knows… that he knew Hundas.” Sutteria’s voice was small and frail.

Sapha released her seat locks and turned it to face the door. “He told you that?”

“Yes.” Sutteria was a strong young woman, confident and poised; the greater part of Sapha’s unreliable income had gone into making her so. To see her looks so uncertain was hard. “Do you think…? Does he really know my brother?”

“I just don’t know,” Sapha admitted. “Hundas left our lives a long time ago.”

“He didn’t leave,” Sutteria insisted. “They took him away.”

Sapha closed her eyes. “I know,” she said. She half turned, activated the automatic pilot and then reached under her control desk, drawing out one of her blasters. She stood and slid the blaster into the pocket of her coat. “Let’s meet this passenger.”  
  
When they met the passenger, Sutteria was all formality and professionalism. “Captain, this is Addis Vosto.”

Vosto was tall and lean, with the look and the dress of a fringe prospector. Sapha would have put him in early middle age, but it was hard to say what that might be. Near-human lifespan varied widely, and even among full-blooded humans, lifestyle and environment played such a large role. Many people took Sapha for Sutteria’s grandmother, but then hadn’t that been the point of sending her children to school in the Republic, working every waking hour for whatever scumbag, smuggler or gangster needed a ship so that she could afford the fees, rather than let them grow up and grow old in Mos Eisley?

And hadn’t that worked out well? Sutteria was a sophisticated woman of the world, but her brother had vanished; dragged from his bed and never seen again. The authorities said that Hundas had been detained for questioning over acts of sabotage against the Imperial government and killed when terrorists attacked the enforcer house where he was held. Sutteria and Assia – Hundas’ girlfriend, the only witness to his abduction – had tried to learn more. Sutteria’s residency had been revoked and a warrant issued for her arrest. Assia had smuggled her out of Imperial space mere hours ahead of a sedition warrant and later learned that she had been declared outlaw for that action. The daughter of a great merchant house, Assia was now the stewardess-cook aboard the  _Mos Eisley Girl_.

And now this man came aboard Sapha’s ship and claimed to have known her son.

Sutteria busied herself around them for a short while, fetching drinks and asking after the passenger’s comfort, but soon made her excuses and left. Sapha watched Vosto closely for any sign of deceit; she saw none, but there was something familiar about his eyes.

“They were very close,” Sapha said at last.

“I know,” Vosto agreed.

“He talked about her?”

Vosto shook his head. “Not very often,” he admitted. “He didn’t like to talk about where he came from; I think he found it too painful. He always hoped that one day he’d come back.”

Sapha nodded her understanding as the hope she had tried not to harbour guttered and died. “He is dead then?”

“I’m sorry. He was…” Vosto shook his head. “You don’t need me to tell you the kind of man he was.”

“That’s just it,” Sapha corrected him. “I do. I’d barely seen my children in ten years. They were making something of themselves; I visited them when I was in the system, but I didn’t want them to come back to Tattooine and see the way I lived.”

“Hundas… He talked about his home with great affection,” Vostos assured her. “Well; he said that Mos Eisley was like a womp rat nest without the pervading sense of decency and decorum, but that you’d made a real home for them, even there.”

Sapha laughed in spite of herself; she could just hear Hundas saying that.

“He also said that he knew you’d only ever settled there to give them a place to call home; that you were happiest on the move.”

“I never knew he was so perceptive.”

“He was. He had a real way with people. They loved him, and they followed him. And smart… I still don’t know how he managed to make contact with the Alliance…”

Sapha was shocked. “The Rebel Alliance? Hundas… The accusations were true?”

“The sabotage, yes,” Vosto agreed, “but not the rest. No-one died because of what he and his friends did. They put the military holonet out of action for a few hours, invoked a lockdown on the campus security barracks, organised sit-ins and protests against the way the new government was putting pressure on the university to expel non-human students and academics.”

Sapha was aghast. “He was a radical? Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He probably thought you were safer not knowing. If he never told you – or Sutteria – then you couldn’t be implicated if he was caught. And after the escape… well, they might have tried to come at you through them.”

“Are  _you_  a rebel?” Sapha demanded.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I am. Or I was; a humble and law-abiding citizen of the New Republic now.”

“Ah,” Sapha sighed. “So, this is the official visit.”

Vosto shook his head. “I’m sure that will come, but no. Hundas and I were friends. He saved my life more often than I could hope to count; I only wish I could have returned the favour one more time. We were with the ground assault during the liberation of Coruscant. Our company came under heavy fire from a unit of Royal Guards and the captain ordered half of us to fall back and flank the enemy. The plan was good, but before we could complete the flanking manoeuvre the Guards brought up a concussion mortar. We lost almost all of the half-company who stayed behind.”

“And you were in the half that flanked the enemy?”

Vosto nodded. “I was the second-in-command and the captain chose to lead the rearguard. He knew what he was doing and he knew the risks.”

“And Hundas?” Sapha demanded angrily.

“Hundas  _was_  the captain. And he never sent anyone to face a risk that he wouldn’t have taken himself.”

Tears sprang into Sapha’s eyes.

“He didn’t…” Vosto’s voice faltered.

“Tell me.”

“He didn’t die right out. The medic survived, but she was buried in the rubble along with her pack. Before he died he asked me to find you; to bring you a message. He said he was sorry, but he had to see it through.”

Sapha nodded. “That was always him,” she agreed. “Never could leave anything half done.”

“He also asked me to bring you his effects. His uniform and sidearm; a little money, a few keepsakes; a ring to go to his fiancée, Assia.”

Sapha forced a smile. “She never told me they were engaged.”

“There’s also this.” He took a battered holopic from the pocket of his robes and slid it across the table. It showed Assia and Sutteria, standing on either side of a tall, handsome youth, whose eyes were the mirror of Sutteria’s.

“Hundas,” Sapha sobbed, touching the face in the image.

“It was taken not long before he was arrested and rescued by the Alliance,” Vosto explained. “Actually… I guess Sutteria doesn’t remember me, but I took the holo.”

“You were at the university?”

“I was a Professor of Philosophy,” Vosto replied, “and your son’s personal tutor. He was a very challenging student, in the best way.”

“Just tell me one thing,” Sapha said in a hard tone. “Did you recruit him?”

Vosto smiled sadly. “I wish I could say I’d had that much influence on him. I told you I didn’t know how he contacted the Alliance and I meant it.  _He_  recruited me; asked me to go with him. It was an easy choice. I liked him, and I could see the way the wind was blowing,” he added, brushing his hair back from the pointed tips of his ears. “I never regretted following him. He was my captain, and my best friend.”

Sapha nodded slowly. “Will you leave me now?” she asked.

“Of course. If there is anything…?” He left the question unfinished and turned to go.

“What are you doing now?” Sapha called after him.

“Just living on my pension,” he replied. “The universities aren’t clamouring for not-quite human philosophers yet.”

“Would you stay a while? Sutteria and Assia will have questions; as I have.”

He sketched a short bow. “Of course,” he replied. “Anything. May the Force be with you, Sapha Ytero,” he said, and then he closed the door on a mother’s private grief.


End file.
